Johnson joins the race to take over the Los Angeles Dodgers

The basketball icon-turned-TV personality and entrepreneur announced his bid to buy the Dodgers in an interview with the Los Angeles Times on Friday (02Dec11).

Johnson is the face of a high-powered ownership group that would include Stan Kasten, the former president of the Atlanta Braves and Washington Nationals, and Mark Walter, chief executive of financial services company Guggenheim Partners.

He says, “I love baseball. I’ve been a Dodgers fan and gone to the park many, many times.

“Stan Kasten is my man. He’s a winner, he’s built two incredible organisations, and he’s well respected. That is what was important to me. I had to get with a winner, a guy who understands baseball inside and out.”

Internet billionaire Mark Cuban, the owner of current NBA basketball champions the Dallas Mavericks, is also reportedly interested in bidding for the Dodgers.

Newsman King, a longtime Dodgers superfan, went public with his own plans to take over the team at the end of last month (Nov11).

He told CNN, “It would be a thrill of a lifetime to be a part owner, a partial owner, of a team I grew up rooting for as a child in Brooklyn.

“To go to a ballpark and have an owner’s box, to even have a say in a possible trade – are you out of your mind? What bigger thrill?”

The Dodgers were based in Brooklyn, New York until moving to Los Angeles in 1958.